A Darkness Absolute

by Kelley Armstrong

  "Pretty sure you didn't just get more than five minutes."

  "I made an exception for your mood. You owe me. I will collect. Anyway, the point is that I went after Sutherland so I could get sex when you came back."

  "Not because you wanted to impress me? Have him waiting when I returned?"

  "Mmm, yes. That, too. But the sex excuse is funnier." I stretch out on him. "I made an error in judgment. The weather was good when we left. Perfect, in fact. Now I know not to trust that. It literally changed in a heartbeat."

  "It does that." He pulls one of the emergency blankets over us. "I overreacted, and I'll apologize for that. Obviously, I can't insist you stay in town. That's not right."

  "As my lover, no. As my boss, you totally can. I distinguish between the two just fine, Eric."

  "Are you telling me you wouldn't have done the same under your old boss?"

  "I didn't want sex from my old boss," I say with a smile, but then add, "No, I would have still left. This was simply employer-employee insubordination. Feel free to punish me for it. As for how you punish me, you can blur the employer/lover line there."

  A sudden laugh vibrates through him.

  He shakes his head. "You punished yourself enough. Lesson learned. All I cared about was finding you. That storm blew up, and I started thinking of how big this forest is and how I might never--" He takes a deep breath. "Enough of that shit. You found Nicole."

  "Right. Good change of subject." I start to roll off him, saying, "I'll let you get comfortable," and he says, "This is comfortable," pulling me back on and adjusting the blanket over us. "If you get cold, let me know," he says.

  "Weirdly, despite being naked in an igloo, I'm not cold." I purse my lips. "Except maybe my toes. I'm putting on my socks." I do that, and I put his on him, too, which makes him smile, and then I stretch back out on his chest, cuddling into his body heat as I say, "So, about Nicole..."

  "I fucked up. I--"

  I press my fingers to his lips. "You thought she was dead, so you stopped looking for her. Will said you found a body. That's not fucking up, Eric. I know you're good at taking blame. Even better than me."

  "Nah, I'm minor league. You're pro."

  I stick out my tongue and then say, "Well, as a pro, let me speak from experience and stop you right there. Skip it and move on, Sheriff. Tell me about Nicole."

  He does. Nicole Chavez came to Rockton eighteen months ago and hadn't made much of an impression. That's not a bad thing. She wasn't a troublemaker, kept to herself.

  She disappeared last year. It was late October, and the weather seemed fine, not unlike yesterday, but Dalton could read the signs that told him a storm was brewing. Come morning, Nicole's roommate reported she'd been out all night.

  That wasn't uncommon in Rockton. We're the Vegas of the north, with population stats that are clearly in the ladies' favor. If Nicole wanted overnight company, she'd have no problem finding it. But that wasn't normal for her, so Dalton set the militia checking door-to-door while he and Anders headed into the forest. When the storm hit, they hauled ass home. The moment it cleared, they went back out again.

  After three days of searching, they gave up. The roommate admitted Nicole sometimes snuck past the town boundary, taking time for herself. Dalton figured she went walking and got lost. He kept looking, but he knew as time passed, the likelihood of finding her alive plummeted.

  Come spring, they found a woman's badly scavenged and decayed body at the foot of Three Peaks Mountain. Her skull and spine showed signs of trauma, and our town doctor Beth had ruled that she'd been climbing, maybe searching for shelter from the storm, when she'd slipped and fallen. The corpse had matched Nicole's hair color and size, but with the condition too bad for a proper ID, Dalton would still never have leapt to the conclusion it was Nicole ... if the body hadn't been wearing her clothing.

  "Her captor set it up," I say. "He found a corpse--a settler or hostile. He might have even killed a woman who roughly matched Nicole. He staged it so you'd stop looking."

  "And I fell for it."

  "Yeah, you messed up. I mean, obviously, if a woman goes missing out here and you find a body matching hers and wearing her clothing, your first thought should be that she was kidnapped by a crazy person who staged her death."

  When he hesitates, I roll my eyes. "That's sarcasm, Eric."

  He says nothing.

  "You're still going to blame yourself, aren't you?"

  "So would you." He shifts, arm going under his head. "Tell me about finding her. I didn't get much from Will. He was filling me in as fast as he could while I got the sled going."

  I tell him about the man in the snowsuit and about finding Sutherland's toque. I plan to hold off on my up-close-and-personal encounter with the guy today, but he says, "And you didn't see any sign of him after that?" and I won't lie. Not to him.

  I admit that snowmobile-suit guy came after me, and with every word, Dalton tenses and by the time I finish, it's like I'm lying on a wooden plank. I decide it's time to crawl off and get my clothes.

  "He's long gone," I say as I dress. "I was careful when I set off the flares. I knew I might draw him in. I was ready."

  "I know that. I just..." He takes a deep breath. "Are you okay?"

  "He didn't hurt me."

  "I don't mean that, Casey. Are you...?" He trails off and rubs his mouth. "Stupid question, right? You're going to tell me you're fine, even if I'm sure you're not."

  I want to brush it off. No, really, I am fine. But I'm trying not to do that with Dalton. "It did freak me out. I kept thinking of Nicole and that hole and..." I inhale. "Can we talk about something else? Please?"

  He nods, pulls on his jeans, and takes bars from the bag, saying, "Ran into an interesting guy in Dawson City."

  I smile. "Shocking."

  "No shit, huh." He roots in the bag and hands me another bar. "This particular guy caught my attention because he was running down the street stark naked, which, in summer, wouldn't be all that strange, but at this time of year, even for Dawson City, it seemed a little odd. So I went out to see what was going on and..."

  TEN

  Dalton and I have fallen asleep. We're half dressed--better for sharing body heat--and I'm curled up against him in my bra and jeans, one emergency blanket under us, two more on top, snowsuits stretched over as makeshift comforters.

  It's a sound sleep, both of us exhausted, and when I do wake, it's only because Dalton insisted I drink most of the water to rehydrate and my bladder is screaming for mercy. I pull on my jacket, not bothering with my shirt. Boots next, and then I crawl from the shelter to find actual sunlight seeping through the trees. I look up toward it, smiling ... and see a figure standing five feet away.

  I'm still half asleep--and unarmed--and I scramble back into the shelter. Dalton's up, gun in hand as he dives past me through the exit and then ... "Fuck."

  "Sorry, Eric. Didn't mean to spook her."

  The snow shelter muffles the voice, but I recognize the accent. Dalton has traces of it. I used to think it was regional. It isn't. It's the vocal tics of someone raised apart from the world, out here with his family.

  "Good morning, Jacob," I call.

  Dalton's younger brother mumbles something that might be a greeting. He reminds me of kids when I did school visits, those who weren't quite sure how to talk to a police officer and hedged their bets by mumbling, gazes fixed on their sneakers.

  I let Dalton go first and then slip out behind him and hightail it off to privacy as he calls, "Not too far!"

  When I come back, I resist the urge to play hostess. Would you like anything, Jacob? How about an energy bar? Water? Do you want to come inside where it's warmer? I'm reminded of when my friend Diana drove me crazy trying to win her ex-husband's parents' approval. That's what I do with Jacob. It's not that he disapproves of me. He's not sure what to make of me. And then there's the fact that I bear scars from our first encounter, when he'd been drugged and out of his mind.

  I reme
mber when he spotted one of the scars once as it was healing. I'd tried to make light by joking that it wouldn't be noticed, pulling up my sleeve to show that I had plenty more from the beating that nearly killed me twelve years ago. And yep, that joke went about as well as one might expect. Awkward humor isn't my style, but Jacob brings out that too, in my desperate need to make a connection with the guy who matters most to Dalton.

  I say, "I'll go in and pack while you two talk," but Dalton shifts into my path, forcing me to stay.

  Jacob looks like his brother, enough that the first time I saw him, there was a moment when I thought he was Dalton. The main difference is the shoulder-length hair, and at this time of year, he's sporting an impressive beard. When he looks in my direction, I'm reminded of the second biggest difference--the gaze that won't meet mine, ducking away, shy and uncertain.

  Dalton says, "Jacob was just telling me he saw you out with Will. He went looking for you guys after the storm. He caught the flares yesterday, but by the time he got here, I had the shelter built. So he stood watch."

  "You've been out here all night?"

  Jacob shrugs and mumbles that it was no big deal, then says, "You okay? Eric says there was a guy."

  "I'm fine, thanks. You didn't happen to see anyone, did you?"

  He shakes his head.

  "Walk back with us," Dalton says. "See if you and I can get that sled going. If not, I'd appreciate you accompanying us to Rockton, in case this guy shows up."

  *

  We don't get Dalton's sled going. So we walk. Jacob leaves us near Rockton. I know we're close even if we can't see the town. It's kept hidden by methods that grow increasingly high-tech and expensive, as the world outside becomes someplace where you can't hide a settlement, even in the Yukon. Disguised at both ground level and aerial, it uses everything from structural camouflage to technology that I suspect even the average reclusive billionaire can't get his hands on.

  What I spot first are the hints I've learned to look for, and then there's a smile on my lips and a quickening of my steps, the sense most people would instantly recognize as the feeling of returning home. I've always felt the relief of closing my apartment door behind me, but this is more. It's a sense of place, of belonging, and it scares me a little. I've only been here four months. I don't know that Rockton is home, that it can be home, that I'll have that choice to make.

  We're still on the outskirts when I spot Anders. We radioed ahead, and he's waiting with a thermos of coffee.

  "Figured you'd want this at the first possible moment," he says, handing it to me.

  "Best deputy ever." I pour a cup and then hand the thermos to Dalton, who drinks it straight. As I resume walking, I say to Anders, "Okay, what's up?"

  "I brought you coffee. If you're complaining, then maybe you won't want these cookies Brian baked for you this morning." He pulls a wrapped bundle, still warm, from his pocket.

  I take them. "Something's up, and it has nothing to do with why you're bringing gifts. You just do that because you're awesome."

  "Can I get that in writing?"

  "Casey's right," Dalton says. "Not about the awesome part. That depends on what condition my town's in. Something's up, and it's making me think I might not be awarding you that awesome certificate anytime soon."

  "There's a certificate?"

  "I have a stack of them," I say.

  "That's because you're sleeping with him."

  "Will," Dalton says, "what's going on?"

  Anders makes a face. "I know the last thing you need is to be plunged into a fresh crisis--"

  "Spit it out, Will," a voice says, and I glance up to see Isabel striding toward us.

  Isabel Radcliffe. She's forty-five, dressed in a sealskin coat and mukluks, with no makeup or hair color--both being nonpriorities in Rockton--and she still manages to be one of the most glamorous women I've ever met.

  Isabel is a former psychologist. Here she's the local bar owner. And brothel owner. I have issues with the latter, but we have become what one might call friends.

  She continues, "If you think Eric and Casey are not perfectly capable of leaping from crisis to crisis, clearly your brain has frozen, soldier boy."

  "I'm going to tell them," Anders says. "I'm just easing into it."

  Her perfectly shaped brows arch. "I believe the situation is a little more urgent than that."

  "We've been dealing with it for two hours. It can wait five more minutes. It's not life or..." He trails off as she shoots him another brow arch.

  "One of you talk," Dalton says. "Now."

  Isabel says. "Your deputy made the mistake of telling Nicole that we're sending her to Whitehorse the moment this weather clears."

  "I was examining her," Anders says, "and explaining my lack of proper medical training, apologizing for it while promising we'll get her to a hospital as soon as possible. I was trying to be reassuring."

  "Proving your serious lack of mental health training."

  "Which is why the shrink should have been there, like I asked her."

  Isabel looks at us. "It's both our faults. I had an incident at the bar, and I was delayed. I'd spoken to Nicole and knew she didn't want to leave Rockton. I failed to convey that to Will. We had a storm and a crisis and no sheriff." She lifts her hands. "And that's not parceling out blame. It's just fact."

  "What's going on with Nicole?" I say. "Obviously she's upset about leaving. Is that what we're dealing with here?"

  Anders and Isabel exchange a look.

  "She's barricaded herself in the ice shed," Isabel says. "Threatening to kill herself if we don't promise she can stay."

  ELEVEN

  I make a beeline for the icehouse. Dalton's boots thump on the trodden snow behind me as he barks, "Out of her way!"

  As I draw near the shed, I see a crouched figure resting against the door, talking to Nicole.

  I slow. "What's Diana doing there?"

  "She volunteered as a nurse," Anders says. "And with the storm, we could best afford to lose the least useful people."

  Which described Diana. I've known her half my life. Been her best friend for years. While I'd ostensibly come to Rockton because mobbed-up Leo Saratori finally figured out who killed his grandson, the truth is that I'd been ready to accept my punishment. I'd come here to help Diana escape her abusive ex. Then I discovered she'd gotten back together with that ex and stolen a million bucks from her employer, and that was why we were here.

  "I vouched for her," Isabel says as she catches up. "I won't say therapy is making Diana a better person, but the only serious danger she poses is to herself. You'll notice she's the only volunteer at that door. And she wasn't even the one who screwed up and let her escape."

  As I approach, Diana rises. I can't read her expression. No more, I'm sure, than she can read mine. We've moved beyond the stage where she vows to destroy me. I'd say that's comforting, but Isabel's right--Diana's only truly a danger to herself, as she always has been. Nowadays, when we can't avoid each other, we're like two stiff-legged dogs circling and waiting for the other to lunge. Neither ever lunges. Neither submits, either. We just circle.

  "He found you," Diana says.

  "Yep." I no longer feel the urge to add a smart-ass sorry about your luck. To give her credit, she also resists the urge to throw in a snarky comment about Dalton.

  Her gaze flicks over me. Hoping to see some damage from two days in the wild? Or making sure I'm all right? I don't even try to guess, just nod at the door and say, "Is she talking to you?"

  "No. It's a one-sided conversation. I can hear her in there, though, so she's okay."

  I move closer to the door. "Nicole? It's Casey."

  "You're back." Her voice drifts out. "Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine. Thank you. But I'd really like to speak to you, and that'll be easier if I can come in. It'll just be me. Unless there's someone else you'd rather talk to. Eric's here, too."

  "Can I talk from in here, please? I don't mean to be rude, but the moment
I open that door, they're all coming in."

  I don't mean to be rude.

  I feel those words, like I felt the ones asking how I was. Her voice is trembling, but there's no rage there. It's as if she doesn't deserve rage. Or simply can't muster the strength for it.

  "They wouldn't," I say, "but you don't know me well enough to be sure of that, so we'll talk through the door. Will says you want to stay in Rockton."

  "I..." Silence. She tries again. "I..." Another pause. Then "You're right. This will be easier if I let you in. Can you do me a favor, though?"

  "Name it."

  "Tell the others to step back five paces and then say something, so I know they're not right outside the door."

  They do as she asks. The door opens, and I slide through.

  It's dark inside. The walls are several layers thick for insulation. There's just a hint of light from under the door. I turn on my flashlight and look around. The building is almost empty. Ice has just started being brought in, kept in a pit scraped down to permafrost and covered with our version of hay for the horses.

  The roof is low to minimize warm airflow, and even at not quite five two, I can't straighten. I start to sit on a hay bale, but Nicole motions for us to move farther in, where the others can't hear.

  When we're seated, she pulls an ice pick from under her jacket. "I will do it," she says. "I just want to be clear on that. I know it'd be more convincing if I were freaking out, ranting and waving this around. But"--a wan smile--"I don't have the energy for that. I just want you to know I will."

  "Okay."

  She shifts on the hay bale. "I know how I'd do it. I spent a lot of time thinking of that. He made sure I didn't have anything to use, but I got creative. In my head, at least. I'd think of all the things he might bring and how I could use them to kill myself. Once, I even tried swallowing rocks, seeing if I could choke myself and reasoning that even if they passed, they might kill me in my digestive tract. It'd be a worse death than choking. It'd do, though. Anything would do."

  She runs her fingers along the ice pick. "I tried dehydration. That seemed to be the one sure way to go. I remembered the sheriff giving lectures before we were allowed out on hikes. He said you can go without food for weeks, but you'll die of dehydration in days." She looks up with that twisted smile. "He made it seem so easy. When I tried, the guy just knocked me out and poured water into me. I didn't choke then either. Unfortunately. But this?" She lifts the ice pick. "This is a no-brainer, as my goddaughter used to say."